On January 4, more than 600 people filled the historic Lincoln Theatre to welcome 52 new Scholars at the 13th annual Posse D.C. Awards Ceremony. The Posse D.C. community celebrated these dynamic young people, who were awarded more than $9 million in full-tuition merit scholarships by Bucknell University, Lafayette College, Sewanee: The University of the South, University of Rochester and University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This year, Posse D.C. received more than 1,500 nominations from over 40 D.C.-area high schools. More than 65 percent of the newly selected Scholars will be the first in their family to attend college in the United States.

The Awards Ceremony included remarks from Posse D.C. alumna Laquan Lightfoot, who received the Ainslie Alumni Achievement Award from The Posse Foundation in 2016. Laquan, who works as the ‎assistant district attorney for the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, stressed the importance of Posse as a support system to the incoming Scholars.

“Your Posse will be invaluable to you in this journey,” Laquan said. “In the next four years, you will lean on your fellow Scholars, and they will help you in ways that you cannot imagine.”

Insurance firm GEICO led sponsorship for the Awards Ceremony with a donation of $25,000. GEICO Vice President Rynthia Rost offered inspiring remarks.

“GEICO has been committed to finding the best and brightest to serve our client base,” Rynthia said. “Posse is the logical partner for finding talent.”